Taiwan did have secret nuclear weapons program in the 70s or 80s, with cover from their nascent nuclear power facilities. When the US caught wind they forced Taiwan to shut the program down. I'm not sure if China knew about it at the time, but I imagine these days it would be impossible to keep it secret from China--too many spies.
Yes PRC knew, hence TW nuclearizing is non starter.
TW/ROC was/is still thoroughly infiltrated by PRC intelligence, if there's credible hint they're moving from nuclear latency/threshold to actual nuclearization (PRC redline), the relevant facilities would be destroyed - no need for PLA boots on ground or telescoped build up, every inch of TW is within 10 minute strike of mainland based ordnances. TW nuclear turnkey potential isn't as fast as PLA rockets/bunker busters.
Unmentioned aspect of US axing TW nuclear program in late 80s, was CSIST / INER (Taiwan nuclear program) was already monitored by PRC intelligence and post Nixon normalization US intel cooperated with PRC intel to shut the program down.
Unwritten between the line is PRC, having closely monitored TW program would have probably nuked TW first if US didn't compel TW to end the program. US Inspection / IAEA went in the dismantle the program, no doubt verified by PRC intelligence, it's unlikely TW can rebuild to nuclear turnkey faster than PRC can mount an invasion. And realistically TW can't fend off a PRC invasion without US involvement, and if US involves to assist TW nuclearizing then TW going to get nuked, and US + PRC will stare down MAD.
Also note PRC fought as in actually shed blood with USSR, India (both borderm skirmishes), US+NATO in Korea, armed Viet against FR, threatened UK over HK... aka every NPT nuclear state over sovereignty/security issues much less important than TW. A few of them when PRC had no/barely any nukes herself. Nuclear simply has never been a credible threat against PRC soverignty issues.
I don’t believe PRC would drop a nuke on TW if they pursued a nuclear weapon. They want to unify with TW, not make a crater of it.
Invasion maybe.
I think if I was in charge of strategic policy at TW I would get as close to a nuke as I could without raising suspicions in the PRC and then once the PRC gets involved in a war or domestic turmoil I would rush to nukes as fast as possible.
PRC want to pacify TW as security risk foremost, reunifying with irradiated but harmless crater of island is not ideal, but preferrable consolation prize to nuclearized TW. Cross strait camaraderie is nice for propaganda, but ultimately really about the soil, not the people, and even radioactive land with no people will suffice. Conventional invasion difficult, might be tried first, but wouldn't rule out radioactive exclusion zone and then airdropping soldiers on one way mission to destroy nuclear program. Secessionist getting nukes (remember TW lack of status as UN) is boots on ground situation, PRC has political carte blanche to do what they want on basically ISIS trying to sprint for nukes, pretty much no one wants proliferation under these circumstances, and PRC will be going gloves off for gaza tier and worse response.
If TW could nuclearize without PRC (or US) knowing, they would have already. But I don't think they can, and despite the occasional US hawks thinks it's neat idea to put TW under US nuclear umbrella, sane planners they know PRC will attribute TW nuclearizing to US negligence (really participation) since unlikely TW can do so without PRC notice unless US help obfuscate. Trying to hide being near threshold while waiting for PRC collapse and assume PRC won't/can't find out even less likely. In which case that's a Cuban crisis PRC won't flinch from, and TW nuclear use will be equivicated with US nuclear use. It's not the galaxy brain one simple trick people think it is. As PRC builds up nuke parity with US, this idea going to be extra bad.
Somewhat related, domestic politics aside, one has to wonder if other forces behind why TW is decommissioning her nuclear plants and becoming even more energy dependant, and less nuclear latent.
Looks like there are some old archived articles on TW wiki of their nuclear program. Coverage stirried up in early 2000s when US/PRC relations warming up and TW felt threatened about their security started seeding more info about nuclear program, hinting they can restart. I read some of the books that started popping up a few years later, they were in Chinese, I can't recall them anymore.
ISIS report interesting in that on the box on page 123, note 14, acknowledges US+PRC intelligence cooperation (from interview by authors with former CIA/US ambassador to PRC). This is something I've seen mentioned in Chinese writing years ago, getting confirmed. Hence there's something to PRC's narrative that they had foreknowledge of TW program and had hand in compelling US to dismantle TW nuclear program to avert crisis.
I totally disagree with the last paragraph. Shedding blood != waging war. China has never dared until now, and will never dare in the future, to engage in a heads-on conflict against the USA. It has skirmishes and conflicts with almost every neighbour. The PRC defence forces do not have the worldwide fighting experience which the US has. Nuclear deterrence acts strongly against the PRC, and they won’t do anything stupid against Taiwan as long as US Navy is positioned in their backyard.
PRC fought US+UN (Nato typo) in full scale war in 50s, to stalemate, while PLA was dramatically inferior vs gap now, and when PRC didn't have nukes, while US did. So not only did they dare to fight US on much worse odds, they did so not deterred by nukes, which US planners mused about using. Shedding blood with several nuclear powers isn't nothing, there's simply no country more willing to challenge other nuclear powers / be less deterred by nukes than PRC on security issues.
IMO US global war experience doesn't amount to much relevant in peer war, in peers backyard, against peer whos spend last 20 years soley fixated on countering US. IMO most don't realize how meagre current USN (and general US posture) is in IndoPac relative to current PRC size and what PRC has in threatre (everything), and how extra meagre 7th fleet in indopac is, CVN76 (carrier group) + desron15 (destroyer squadron) is like 10-20 ships depending on deployment. Last few years PRC coast guard messing around in Senkakus, dozens of incidents every year that should on paper trigger US defense obligation, but nothing from US. USN hasn't been credible deterrent for a while. US not sending carriers through TW straight for years, current US planning has carriers operate out of PRC backyard during shooting war to hopefully figure out way to do standoff strikes. Assuming they're not sunk before that. Or assuming they can operate more than a few days since PRC missiles can hit most replenishment sites/fleets. For reference invading 90s Iraq took 5 carriers group + regional basing + french selling out Iraqi air defense. Eisenhower carrier / CVN69+DDGs aren't exactly defeating houthis right now. Current PRC is like 80x larger than Iraq then by population, 100x larger by gdp, and 100x+ more industrial output. Current one year PRC ship building is outputting cumulative US 5 year WW2 which is proxy indicator for other domains (like munitions). USN formidable against PLA 10-15 years ago, but that's also how long PRC took to close gap which they are likely to extend.
Ask how much can PRC arm Mexico, Caribbeans etc to prevent US from destroying Cuba if US really wanted to. The reasonable answer is no amount, the proposition is borderline stupid because the force balance size between US vs rest is just that lopsided. Same force balance trend in PRC vs US+co in IndoPac now. PLA growing/modernizing faster than everyone else combined, US containment partners who can't comtain are now liabilities - US still obligated to defend in PRC unfavourable ground of PRC backyard.
Trend of geopolitics indicate US allies are less than ready, and outside of theatrics, has signalled _zero_ actual formal commitment. SKR opposition drafting legistlation to prevent SKR from assisting US in TW scenario a few weeks ago. JP avoid openning up main islands for expanded US basing despite US asking for ~10 years now. All those "war games" propaganda that US can win in variety of scenarios against PRC... depends on those expanded basing (and a bunch of PLA hardware not working). Current US posture (again without expanded basing) is not sufficient. PH is more or less irrelevant. What can India do on other side of Himalayas?
Hence current US military posture (which includes allies) is not sufficient, because allies have repeatedly demonstrated through action & inaction that they are extremely unwilling to seriously help US for TW, because as import dependant islands they don't want to be PRC missile sinks, and regress into developing countries if PRC decides to do their own "operation starvation". And when PLA occasionally do leaks like cruise missile gigafactory that makes 1000 components a day i.e. a few days production will satuate all US interceptors in 1IC, every year it becomes increasingly obvious US can't prepoposition enough hardware to shift balance vs PRC, not just TW in scenario, questionable if US even able defend JP, SKR, PH etc.
The US could also secretly transport tactical nuclear weapons to Taiwanese airbases, then announce that Taiwan was now protected under a similar nuclear guarantee to Europe.
Any invasion triggers release of the devices into Taiwanese operational control.
It can't be binding unless it's a treaty. A presidential administration could tell Taiwan that they would definitely come to their aid, but a new president could establish a different policy.
I feel like the only country that has guaranteed protection by the US would be Japan. Past that, rest of the top 5 would probably be South Korea, Philippines, Canada and Israel.
Which makes it critically important to see through to the end that Ukraine wins. Otherwise South Korea, Taiwan, and others would be right in recognizing that a nuclear arsenal is the better option.
This has always been true though. Consider, if the US is a friend worth depending on why do its closest allies UK, Israel and France still maintain nuclear weapons at great expense?
In Europe the fact that the US dragged its feet entering WWII is still within living memory. Asian countries perhaps are still to learn this lesson.
Actually UK (where a civil war seems just started) ruling class desperate need a war to remain in power, USA are in a far better position, but their ruling class still need a war to avoid a civil one. Israel ruling class desperately need to keep the war up or they'll go to jail so... At least three powers desperately look for war.
Of course, the people do not want wars, but so far most people in the world have forgot the old way of unite to makes rulers obey so they obey instead.
UK economy failed due to excess cleptocracy from very few, UK people start to be tired enough to riot. Perhaps they stop, perhaps they grow to the point of a full scale action against the government, I do not know, but that's to me an evident start/harbinger of a civil war.
The vast majority of impoverished people manage to get through their day without attacking a mosque. These people aren’t rioting because they’re poor, they’re rioting because they are racists.
If there’s a correlation between being a racist thug and being impoverished, the causation is likely low intelligence.
There is no end to the war in which Ukraine wins. If Ukraine is winning and Russia gives up, America will be worried and find a way to keep the war going. If Russia wins while Ukrainians are still alive, America will be filled with regret that they did not support Ukraine well enough.
Ukraine is like Afghanistan 2.0 ; the imminent fall/break of Russia.
NK is not stupid enough to launch a land war on SK, they know they'd get their asses handed to them. This is unfortunately not necessarily true for PRC vs Taiwan.
North Korea also probably wouldn’t nuke Seoul because it is 40km from the border and so they’d also probably not be doing themselves any favors. They’d probably nuke Tokyo or Okinawa though.
I don’t think that PRC would nuke Taiwan mostly because nuking does not mean they’ve actually secured it, and now they have to deal with the pain of a beach invasion into irradiated territory.
How do you explain the brother against brother kill kill kill nature of the US Civil War then?
Later, in the Atomic Age, the US military had no real issue with fallout drifting across US citizens during above ground weapons testing, they covered up dropping a live, armed nuke on US soil that only barely failed to detonate
We have thousands of years of examples of two “blood kin” groups attacking each other. In addition to this is the fact that not all peoples with roots in present day PRC are Chinese. Tibet is a region of PRC that is not Chinese, for example.
Yes. I was referring to the comment about “blood kin”. Not all peoples native to present day PRC borders are “blood kin” and certainly not all people from Taiwan are Han.
That might have been true at one point but younger Taiwanese no longer feel much kinship with mainland China. And kinship didn't prevent the long series of revolutions and civil wars that have dominated Chinese history for millennia. I wouldn't be surprised to see another one when a power vacuum appears following the death of Chairman Xi.
China wants the ability to choke off all of the (east and south)China Sea, especially the strait of Taiwan. They are becoming more militant and want to make an example to the world of what challenging the “will of China” means. I don’t think they even care that much about TSMC capabilities and knowhow
I believe it's more the other way around. Taiwan purposely made themselves an essential part of global trade to keep the USA invested in their security.
A few nukes is going to be more of a deterrent than any number of reservists.
The past few decades has shown that the greater powers of the world have no problem squashing you — unless you possess nuclear weapons.